Conaway measures up well with country’s top conservatives

Midland Reporter-Telegram

Published 6:17 am, Monday, March 11, 2013

It was interesting to see last week that Midland Republican Congressman Mike Conaway was listed by the National Journal to be tied for fifth place among the most conservative members of the House during 2012.

Conaway is the representative of Texas District 11, which includes Midland. Conaway was in the fifth place tie with John Fleming (R-La.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas).

Hensarling represents District 5, which includes part of Dallas County.

Other members of the Texas delegation to crack the Top 25 were No. 17 Pete Olson, District 22 (Houston area); No. 18 Bill Flores, District 17 (Bryan, Waco); and No. 24 Sam Johnson, District 3 (Plano area).

The National Journal had a rather shocking pick for the No. 1 slot, which went to Todd Akin, R-Mo. Akin definitely left his mark on the national political scene, but not because of his conservative views. He is now gone from national politics after making a misguided comment about “legitimate rape” during his campaign for the Senate. He lost his re-election bid to Democrat Claire McCaskill, who — following Akin’s remarks — charged Republicans were tone deaf on women’s issues. It was a band of flawed Republican candidates such as Akin, who we believe set the party back signficantly, if not cost the party control of both the House and Senate.

Following Akin was Austin Scott (R-Ga.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Jeff Landry (R-La.). Louisiana had three of the 10 most conservative House members.

For the past three decades, the National Journal has rated members of Congress based on selected roll-call votes from the previous year to see how they compared with each other on an ideological scale. Unlike interest groups that rate lawmakers, National Journal does not attempt to say how members should have voted but describes how they voted in comparison with one another.

For years, Midland County has been noted as one of the most conservative counties in the state. It is known for giving Republican candidates on the national scale more than 70 percent of the vote. In fact, Conaway has enjoyed this kind of margin within the county.

It is good to know that Conaway’s voting record in Washington continues to reflect the attitudes of the voters back home. We would expect his name to be high on such a list. We continue to want our conservative values represented on Capitol Hill.

We don’t want our congressmen trying to make this list. We want representatives who are carrying conservative values forward in a time when government needs to cut spending, fix our future entitlement system and create jobs.